Well the nuttiness of life never lets up does it? One thing after the other testing our commitment to the path we have chosen to follow, sucking at our energy with a relentless pounding ... like waves on a sandy beach...
My step father Jere has been battling cancer for many years. He is an amazing dude with lots of energy, persistent positivity and an incredible dedication to service... (you know the keen, basic awareness of those around him and their needs...) Recently, the cancer has been causing him great pain and so they flew up to Florida where he can
receive treatment at the VA hospital ... The basic goal is to get the pain under control while fighting severe nausea (a side effect of the pain medication causing severe dehydration).
I talked with Mom earlier this week and the doctors (he is currently staying at the hospital) believe after looking at several xrays and cat scans that the cancer is in some lymph nodes that that begun to put direct pressure on the surrounding nerves. This is the source of the pain. 
One of the ways of dealing with this would be to attack those nodes somehow using chemo to lessen the pressure on the nerves. So the focus right now is to find out how this can be done in Costa Rica and what they need to do to make that happen. David is doing some investigative work for them through a friend whose father is going through a similar ordeal. They also were going to get an MRI done today to see if they could get a better look at what the cancer is doing in the lower back. Aria has posted some more details from today at her blog...
Anyway that was a little update... please keep Jere, Mom and family in your prayers.
What else? The boys started back at school this week. Both have new teachers and have some of their same friends. Work is booming for both Britt and I. I tried to unsuccessfully buy two gerbils for the boys today. Did you know that 25% of americans did not read a single book last year? Or that your heart pumps 75 gallons of blood every hour when you are at rest? Or that there are only 3 (THREE!!!)countries in the world who do NOT use the metric system, Liberia, Burma and the U.S.!!!! Or that through our DNA you and I are 99.99% the same!
Whoah... I need some sleep.
The remainder are a few Pics from the last of the Costa Rica trip. Beach trip, saying good bye, one of Britt's favorite churches on the way to the beach, Sasha let the boys and I take her to the children's museum in downtown San Jose for THREE Hours without her mom... we were very honored.
Well it has been a few weeks of wait and see as far as Jere is concerned. Definite progress has been made and there is a chance that we can take him back to Costa Rica next saturday... vamos a ver.
In the meantime I realized that I haven't mentioned a few key happenings here. Right when we got back from CR we had a visit from some dear friends who are now living in Dubai. They have been there for a few years now and have been sorely missed as we found out this visit. Zia is from Atlanta. Everybo
dy knows Zia being that he is the coolest, calmest, most in tune guy you have ever met (except for a few amazing stories he has about rare occasions of severe confrontation with established injustices...). Seff his wife is from Papua New Guinea and they have two amazing yittle ones (huge now actually) Samira and Senai. Seff couldn't make the trip up here as her vacation time had run out but Zia and the kids were here a little over a week at our house. The kids clicked immediately with legos, water games and silliness and it was fun catching up after 7-8 years worth of distance.
Thanks again guys for honoring us with your visit... it was a full blast of wonderful fresh air that was sorely needed. And I can't even begin to tell you how much you are missed!!! Let's do it again soon!
I also include a recent pic of the cousins having a picnic in their fort And the boys and I sitting on the car I learned to drive on in the early 80s!!!
