Here for the haul.

After meeting with Victoria’s radiation oncologist last Tuesday, we’re pretty sure she’s going to need two more surgeries. She’ll still have the second endoscopic surgery on July 16th, and then she’ll likely need another surgery 4-6 weeks after that in which they’ll go in through the side of her skull to try and resect any remaining tumor they weren’t able to access through her nose.

Once the third surgery is complete, Victoria’s oncologist wants to wait at least 8 weeks before they begin her 5 day/week proton radiation therapy for an additional 8 weeks. It’s unclear whether or not we will be able to come home for a short time in between Victoria’s third surgery and the time she begins proton therapy. It all depends on how the surgeries go and her risk of having a CF leak.

As of now, it’s looking like we’ll be in Boston until the end of the year. Harpeth Hall is currently working on a plan for Victoria so that she can participate in school remotely. However, the main side effect of proton therapy is exhaustion so, hopefully, Victoria can keep up as best she can and then play catch-up on the weekends if need be.

We took a few days last week and drove to Rhode Island for a change of pace and scenery. Travis and Wren will head back to Nashville tomorrow and then Travis will be back here for Victoria’s second surgery the following week.

Thank you all for continuing to keep us in your prayers. Seeing a loved one through any major illness is just plain hard. It’s hard for our family to be split up. It’s hard for Travis to run a company and travel back and forth so often. It’s going to be really hard for Wren to start the school year without Victoria and me there. It’s hard for me not to get terribly anxious thinking about everything I didn’t have time to take care of before I left and what all I need to do to prepare everyone for these next several months. Most of all, it’s hard for Victoria to be away from home, her family, and her friends for what she anticipated would be a lot less time than it will end up being. She thought she’d be able to start her 8th grade year with her class and go about being a normal teenager. (Well, normal is a stretch. Sorry V, but your preppy skibidi toilet rizz lingo is anything but normal.🫣)

However, we do believe that God never puts us through anything we can’t handle. Hopefully, a year from now, this will seem like a blip in time that changed us all for the better. I mean, listen to what we accomplished over the past few days! Wren taught herself the entire Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders’ “Thunder” dance, I washed a whole load of laundry with a MegaRed krill and fish oil pill that was left in my sweatshirt pocket (yep, it’s just as bad as you imagine🤢), Travis caught a big fish from a pre-stocked pond and annihilated a daddy long legs which he claimed was “the biggest spider he’s ever seen,” and Victoria memorized the new Zach Bryan album in its entirety and legitimately beat her dad in a trapshooting contest. I’d say we’re living up to our #notMESSINAround motto pretty darn well.

Cheers from Boston!