Author Archives: beghtelam

Matt: I had a difficult start to 2025. In retrospect, I am fortunate to have survived my 10-day stay in the hospital back in January when I had pneumonia. Also, the presence of the hole in my esophagus meant I needed to have a feeding tube reinserted into my stomach AND make a decision onContinue reading “MP 46”

Happy 2025! Praise the Lord that my feeding tube is out and my esophageal stent is out. However, I’ve hit a snag. Last summer the decision was made to yank (literally) the feeding tube out of my stomach in a five minute office procedure. The hole left by the tube closed up on its ownContinue reading “MP 45: Holey esophagus”

Matt: I can swallow. My cough is greatly reduced. Tumors are stable. Praise the Lord! I’ve had a few unexpected procedures and tests involving my esophagus over the past few months. Last year, I needed a stent installed as tumors in my chest had pushed part of my esophagus nearly shut. However, from what IContinue reading “MP 44”

Matt: Praise the Lord! Its 2024 and overall, things are good, stable, and slowly improving. My scans in the Fall revealed significant inflammation in my chest related to infection from aspiration pneumonia earlier in the year. My doctor raised the possibility of changing me to a new targeted therapy, but wanted to wait and monitorContinue reading “MP 43”

Matt: Brief updates and prayer requests. My last scans at the end of August showed many areas of improvement in the chest, but also some new spots in the lungs. Visual interpretation of lung spots isn’t always a conclusive way to determine whether a spot is a malignant growth, or benign inflammation, scar tissue, orContinue reading “MP 42”

Matt: Just a quick update to share. Annie has decided to take an SLP job in a local school district. This will help our financial situation, but Annie being out of the home for long stretches will challenge us to keep trusting God in the details. I am in the process of transitioning to theContinue reading “MP 41”

Matt: I’m back!  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the return of cancer and possible reasons why it took a seizure to bring me to the doctor’s office.  I’ve made some decisions that I regret. Cancer patients want to hear that there is ‘no evidence of disease’. When my doctors said there wasContinue reading “MP 40”

Annie: June 28th we had our first visit to the oncology clinic. Matt’s doctor said that clinically he is doing well and so she said he could stop taking the (nasty) steroid. His blood labs were pretty good too. Matt had been concerned that his hemoglobin levels would be down and so preemptively had beenContinue reading “MP 39-17th Anniversary”

Annie: It has been a busy week! On 6/18 (Father’s Day) the doctor came to Matt’s room before 9am and said, “Let’s get you outta here!” Matt cheered, “YES!” with his arms flying up in celebration. The doctor then asked, “How has your eating been going?” and our reply was suddenly sullen…”he hasn’t been eatingContinue reading “MP 38”

Annie: I’ve had it in my planner to do an update for a couple of weeks now…here we go. On June 7th Matt got to reduce the steroid more from the week prior and also had a virtual appointment with his oncologist. She was very pleased at the amount that the tumors in the brainContinue reading “MP 37”