Spoiler alert!!!
If you haven't yet seen the movie Titled "God's Not Dead" and wish to, Please stop reading and see it before continuing to read this post.
Tonight our family went to a very crowded mall and theater to see the movie "God's Not Dead". The movie is about a student enrolling in classes his freshman year in college. Besides his core classes he picks an elective class of Philosophy 150. Even though being advised to select the class with another professor he chooses to go ahead with the class any way.
At the opening of this class, the professor requests all the students to write down on a paper 3 words along with their signature. Those word are God is Dead. All the students in the class proceed to do so except one Christian student who couldn't. This student is given the task (since he couldn't sign the paper) to prove exactly the opposite of what they were suppose to write on the paper.
He had 3 classes he needed to prepare and give the lecture to the class in order convince not only the professor but the rest of the class that God was not dead but in fact very much alive. He does this very well, for the detail on how you will need to see the movie.
It is actually other parts of the movie I wanted to write about. There are 3 other characters/situations in the movie that I can personally identify with. Shortly after the opening of the movie you see a young woman visiting an older woman. The nurse is bringing the old woman an evening meal of chicken. The old woman says "I don't remember the last time I had chicken" and devours it happily. The nurse leans over to the young woman and states she has that for lunch that day and the evening before as well. We find out the young woman is the old woman's daughter and the old woman has some form of Dementia.
During the movie you are introduced to a busy reporter who's job is to report on dirt of famous people. positive famous people I may add. She keeps getting and ignoring phone calls from a doctor. Her boyfriend seems to be as goal and career oriented as she is and both act as though they are on the top of the food chain. When you finally see her in the Doctor's office she continues to allow interruptions from her cell phone. The Doctor finally interjects and informs her the test came back positive and she has cancer. She is convinced she will die.
As to not completely give away the movie I'm not going to tell you who exactly but rather what for this last one. All you need to know is the person is a non believer. The situation is this person is on foot and is hit by a car and rolls up on the hood of the car and then rolls from the car into the street. By all means see the movie to find out what happens here as well as with the other people.
If you don't know already, my Dad has Alzheimer's (a form of Dementia) and while he is nothing like the woman in the movie, I can identify with having a parent struggle with the disease. The second person is quite different from me, yet I can Identify with her story in the aspect that I was also diagnosed with cancer. I can personally understand the fear of death. I have lived with cancer and many of the fears that go along with it since my diagnosis on May 11, 2012. By now many of you are saying but what about being hit by a car? Not many people can identify with someone on foot being hit by a car and rolling up the hood of the car. Many of you may not know I was on a bike tour with my dad (before he was affected by or diagnosed with Alzheimer's). During the tour I crossed a road and was hit by a car. I rolled up the hood of the car, hit the windshield with my head (inside a bike helmet) and twirled in the air for a few times until I landed in the ditch about 20 or more feet from one of my shoes. Luckily I didn't break anything that day but my pride.
Through this you can see why this movie was very powerful, especially to me. I left enough detail out as to not completely give away the movie. Please go see the movie. Please take those who don't know God personally as it may start a conversation.
Without having seen the movie I could assure of these three final words.
God's Not Dead!!!
--Kent
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Hello Again!
Hello Again!
Many of you have asked why we haven't written on the blog lately. Well the answer to this is, you know the saying, "no news is good news!" well it has been just that. In February, Kent had a Dr. appt. with his Oncologist here in Grand Rapids. He also had another Doctor appt. across the state as well. We met with both Dr's. to discuss how to handle the next steps in treating Kent with Chemo without running him down. The idea of Kent taking some time off and letting his plasma get healthy again was the option that they agreed to. This meant four weeks off with no treatment. Four weeks off, for the average person would mean taking a short trip somewhere or doing some family outings or watching a few movies, but Kent isn't average. He decided again to take a major house project under his belt. He re- tiled 400 square feet of our home. This wasn't the average take it up and lay back down, this included a lot of blood sweat and tears of scraping and pulling up "stuck" down floor. He worked hard and I was very proud of him. But I did wonder how that was going to let him "rest " before the next Chemo. This project is almost complete with a few loose strings left yet, like trim and reassembling the bathroom.
Two weeks go he again dove into a chemo regimen but of a tad bit different flavor, this time we would take out the main chemo drug but leave the anti nausea, Vitamin and the secondary chemo in place. He also would wear a pump home. This is a maintenance Chemo regimen. This would keep him from not doing anything, and still keep chemo in his system so that the tumors would still be attacked with some sort of "cocktail." Today was Kent's 2nd round of this cycle. He did well. We are very thankful for less pain and less sickness with the maintenance chemo. Sleep seems to be what helps along with food. Well most of us would be unhappy with getting on the scale in public Kent needs to do this every time that he goes to the cancer center and his weight was music to my ears. He told me it was 185! Wow! I was thrilled! You have to know that when we started this cancer journey he was 155 at most. I love seeing that scale up because at one point the Dr told me gaining weight means that Kent is winning the battle at that moment. So for right now the cancer is stable and we will embrace the weight gain. Kent will be getting an MRI in about 4 to six weeks and it will be checked against the CAT scan he had a while back as markers to see how he is doing with the current chemo he is on.
The past few weeks we have been very busy with many projects. We were able to do a few things out and about in which one included running into a very famous person in our very own house! My daughter! A few weeks ago I was thrilled to answer a phone call from Gilda's Club (the cancer support group we attend) I thought they were checking in on Lydia. I was surprised to find that they would love to speak with Lydia and have her be a guest on the Maranda show on TV regarding her experience last year at laugh fest. Many of you know that she was pulled on stage last year to do a magic trick with Justin Willman. On the Maranda show Lydia was a true star. Lydia spoke from her heart about her experience on stage and how Gilda's has helped her with cancer. We were very proud of her. She truly has been amazing and our little girl isn't so little anymore. She has a huge heart for helping those around her and has taught us her parents so much. She is growing so much in her faith and we couldn't be more thrilled! Tonight I (Kent is so tired from treatment) am going to watch her sing , play a recorder and dance in a program at school. At can't help to be thrilled that her Grammy and Grandma will be there to support but in absence of both Papa and Grandpa. My dad would of been so proud of all his grandchildren in this program and Grandpa would love to see Lydia but confusion and Alzheimer's doesn't make that possible.
On the
We apologize that we haven't stayed in touch with you but hope that with the few pictures and video included you will see what has been keeping us from doing the blog.
Blessing to each of you! May you have a great Spring Day (snow and all) :) !
Much Love,
Leah
Many of you have asked why we haven't written on the blog lately. Well the answer to this is, you know the saying, "no news is good news!" well it has been just that. In February, Kent had a Dr. appt. with his Oncologist here in Grand Rapids. He also had another Doctor appt. across the state as well. We met with both Dr's. to discuss how to handle the next steps in treating Kent with Chemo without running him down. The idea of Kent taking some time off and letting his plasma get healthy again was the option that they agreed to. This meant four weeks off with no treatment. Four weeks off, for the average person would mean taking a short trip somewhere or doing some family outings or watching a few movies, but Kent isn't average. He decided again to take a major house project under his belt. He re- tiled 400 square feet of our home. This wasn't the average take it up and lay back down, this included a lot of blood sweat and tears of scraping and pulling up "stuck" down floor. He worked hard and I was very proud of him. But I did wonder how that was going to let him "rest " before the next Chemo. This project is almost complete with a few loose strings left yet, like trim and reassembling the bathroom.Two weeks go he again dove into a chemo regimen but of a tad bit different flavor, this time we would take out the main chemo drug but leave the anti nausea, Vitamin and the secondary chemo in place. He also would wear a pump home. This is a maintenance Chemo regimen. This would keep him from not doing anything, and still keep chemo in his system so that the tumors would still be attacked with some sort of "cocktail." Today was Kent's 2nd round of this cycle. He did well. We are very thankful for less pain and less sickness with the maintenance chemo. Sleep seems to be what helps along with food. Well most of us would be unhappy with getting on the scale in public Kent needs to do this every time that he goes to the cancer center and his weight was music to my ears. He told me it was 185! Wow! I was thrilled! You have to know that when we started this cancer journey he was 155 at most. I love seeing that scale up because at one point the Dr told me gaining weight means that Kent is winning the battle at that moment. So for right now the cancer is stable and we will embrace the weight gain. Kent will be getting an MRI in about 4 to six weeks and it will be checked against the CAT scan he had a while back as markers to see how he is doing with the current chemo he is on. The past few weeks we have been very busy with many projects. We were able to do a few things out and about in which one included running into a very famous person in our very own house! My daughter! A few weeks ago I was thrilled to answer a phone call from Gilda's Club (the cancer support group we attend) I thought they were checking in on Lydia. I was surprised to find that they would love to speak with Lydia and have her be a guest on the Maranda show on TV regarding her experience last year at laugh fest. Many of you know that she was pulled on stage last year to do a magic trick with Justin Willman. On the Maranda show Lydia was a true star. Lydia spoke from her heart about her experience on stage and how Gilda's has helped her with cancer. We were very proud of her. She truly has been amazing and our little girl isn't so little anymore. She has a huge heart for helping those around her and has taught us her parents so much. She is growing so much in her faith and we couldn't be more thrilled! Tonight I (Kent is so tired from treatment) am going to watch her sing , play a recorder and dance in a program at school. At can't help to be thrilled that her Grammy and Grandma will be there to support but in absence of both Papa and Grandpa. My dad would of been so proud of all his grandchildren in this program and Grandpa would love to see Lydia but confusion and Alzheimer's doesn't make that possible. On the
We apologize that we haven't stayed in touch with you but hope that with the few pictures and video included you will see what has been keeping us from doing the blog.
Blessing to each of you! May you have a great Spring Day (snow and all) :) !
Much Love,
Leah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)