I want to talk to you about my courageous friend Jack Hennings. He has a miracle story, which speaks of Living In Courage to me. In 1993 Jack found out he had Leukemia – Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia throughout his whole body. At one point his bone marrow was 98% impacted, with only 2% viable and functioning. Jack also had a 6 lb. mass of lymph nodes in his abdomen. Emergency chemo helped shrink the mass. In one more week, his kidneys would have exploded. He had to sign a waver that the emergency chemo that night could kill him. This was a significant night in Jack’s life, he did not know if he would live or die. He lived.
The mass was decreased in size and Jack took chemotherapy on and off for 10 years after that. During that 10 year period there were two other times Jack almost died. After 10 years he had exhausted all chemo resources. Radiation was not an option because the cancer was in his bone marrow and lymph nodes. A Stem Cell transplant was the only option to save Jack. The Stem Cell transplant was done in 2003. Jack’s brother Sam Hennings was a perfect match as a donor. One in 35 Million!
After the transplant there were complications. The new immune system Jack developed was his brother Sam’s, which was too strong for Jack’s ailing body. He had to be on immuno suppressants for about a year to allow his body to develop the strength to handle his brothers immune system. Jack became stronger and stronger. The cancer has been gone 6 years. Jack believes that the Stem Cell transplant was a miracle that saved his life. Jack’s doctor was Dr. Lenard Sender at UCI Medical Center in Orange, CA.
Jack and his beautiful wife Debra are happily living a dream life. Their new website coast2coastinteriors is in development and will be up in July 2009. Jack has a great vision for his life and will share it soon with the world. It is a joy to be around Jack because he is joyful gratitude in motion – alive and vital. Courageous Hero’s come in many forms. Jack is my Hero, as is his brother Sam.
Below is a video of Dr. Lenard Sender who is a leading advocate for a neglected demographic: young adults with cancer. He joined some of his patients at a recent Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week at UC Irvine.
Here is the weekly update on Randy Pausch. We send you and your family love Randy. So many people visit this site and leave comments for Randy and his family. I would like to thank all the people who leave comments and stories about their lives and challenges. Randy Pausch gives courage and hope to people all over the world as he puts a different face on life’s hardships, encouraging everyone to live life to the fullest. Our heart are with you Randy.
June 26th, 2008: Slow, but continued recovery
I continue to slowly recover. Chemotherapy has a cumulative effect, so it takes longer to recover the deeper one gets into this. Our current thinking is that more chemotherapy may not be wise; at this point, almost all potential chemotherapies may potentially make me so weak/sick that even if they were to slow the tumor, it would not be clear it would be the right tradeoff. We are currently narrowing down some immunuotherapy-based apporaches that would presumably come with little or no side effects. More news as that proceeds.
Dr. Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Last September (2007) he gave his last lecture. This is a tradition among College Professors – giving your last lecture as though you were dying.The rub is, Dr Randy Pausch, is in all likelihood dying. He is battling pancreatic cancer. Diagnosed with the cancer on August 15, 2007 and given 3-6 months to live, today he is still going. Here is what he wrote on his own blog on February 15, 2008:
Feb 15: Six months later …. and still alive & healthy Today is a pretty important day. It was August 15th, 2007, when I was told I likely had “three to six months of good health left.”Today is six months from that day. Just to prove I’m still alive, here I am, holding today’s New York Times! I rode my bike today; the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy are hurting my stamina some, but I bet I can still run a quarter mile faster than most Americans.The doctors weren’t wrong; they always said that if the palliative chemo worked, I’d buy more time, but that it was a long shot. And the doctors have done a brilliant job of tweaking my regimen to help my odds. How much longer this will work is hard to know, but I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left, no matter how many or how few of them I get.
This is Randy on Oprah giving an abridged version of his “last lecture”. This is what we mean when we say courage.Read Randy’s blog here
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