Cade The Warrior

Today marks one year since this journey began. I read this morning in Joshua 21 a beautiful verse that fit perfectly as our family collectively remembers all that has happened.  “Not one word of the good promises God had made to the house of Israel (or house of Freije) had failed, all came to pass.”  We as a family are very much alive and fully aware that what capped not only our bodies but our hearts alive this year was the great promises of God. There is no substitution for his presence and nothing sustains like his love. I am truly overwhelmed by his kindness and his sustenance in the middle of everything. I got to give our story for the first time in completion to our church on Sunday, and I’ve linked it  Here . Cade is loving school- and although the first few weeks he would get home and ask me how many more days he had to go sit at school, he now has found friends in almost all of his classmates and when I watch him walk in he is inevitably teasing or being

We are so thrilled to share with y'all the good news from this week's scans. We explain at length in the video we made, and share some other cool stories. The bottom line is that Cade's four new lung nodules we saw on the scans in August were completely gone- and based on some new findings our oncologist feels confident it is the result of an infection and not the disease. We are not doing surgery, we are done with chemo, and CADE IS GOING TO SCHOOL! We will re-scan in three months to check on the scar tissue to make sure it is not growing, and to monitor him. We are so thankful to have this break, and we are hoping you fully celebrate with us. Our minds are still pretty blown- we had an emotional whiplash of a week last week, and I am personally still very much processing and absorbing what all of this means. In essence, I feel like I am emerging from hiding with my family, and it is amazing how many new decisions need to be made. But this is what relationship with J

This week is scan week, and I know people must be praying because the peace we both feel is ridiculous. Cade has enjoyed a week of being so normal- running, playing, sweating, soccer, playgrounds. All of the things I once took for granted feel like a privilege and a gift. Thursday morning we will go in for a chest CT scan and a meeting with our oncologist. If the spots remain, we will have surgery in the next two weeks to remove them and get pathology. Everything hinges on the results of the pathology, and we are praying that every single cell is dead. We got to spend time with friends on Sunday night celebrating how faithful God has been through this process. It was so encouraging, and so good for me to stop and look back and realize all that God has done. It reminds me of the story where Jesus healed 10 leperous men and only one returned to thank him. I want to be that one. I want to always be willing to recognize when miracles have happened. Some days it feels like life can be

After a very brief hospital stay (3 days and 4 nights), we are back at home. And we are still very much processing the fact that WE HAVE FINISHED THIS CHEMO PROTOCOL. We explain it more in the video but basically Cade's kidney health is important, and chemo plus the antibiotic we are giving him for the bacteria that showed up on cultures last week is a bad combination. Our oncologist suggested being done with chemo, and moving forward with scans next week. It is stunning to me how graciously God has carried us so far. When we first heard about how long chemo would be, we were pretty much paralyzed. I couldn't even look at the sheet with the dates listed. Literally. Chad was the one who kept on top of it and would tell me what was ahead, but I basically had to live week to week. I am so thankful Chad and I are gifted differently, or else we both would have been clueless. But chunk by chunk, week by week, day by day, we made it through. And so many of you have been there with

Cade and I showed up early Monday morning for chemo, food stash in hand with lots of books to read only to find out a few hours later that Cade had a big spike in temperature, and after getting some cultures to make sure there is no infection, we got to leave early and chemo-free. We will go in again this Thursday and Friday to get these infusions again. Here are some specific things to pray for with this chemo group on Thursday: 1. Please pray protection over his kidney, heart, and bladder. He had an ECHO Friday to check heart funcion as on of these chemos can cause heart damage. Please pray Cade is protected! Please also pray against bleeding in the bladder lining and any stress to his remaining kidney as the other chemo in this group is hard on those areas. 2. Please pray against any nausea and especially delayed nausea as that has been the culprit in the past for Cade. Please pray he has ZERO vomiting! 3. Please pray against mouth sores so that Cade can comfortably eat and d

We have been loving life outside of the hospital, and as we suspected last week, Cade didn't quite make counts for the chemo that was scheduled this Monday so we are enjoying a week of normal life. And it's been remarkably normal.  Since we've been home, we moved Cade's bed into Eden and Haven's room, and so now three of our four sleep in one space. We stagger the exact bed times most nights to reduce bed time angst, but mornings are a general favorite around here and include lots of noise, jumping off beds, reading to each other, etc. I love it so much.  Cade also went to the gym and the park with me for the first time since diagnosis. That's amazing. He even ate out at a restaurant, which we've only done two other times. All these very normal things feel very abnormal and special, which is a part of the gift of this season I'm sure.  We are still fervently praying that: 1. Cade's body and immunities kick into high gear and comple